§ 7. Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow)If he will reconsider his decision not to make agrimonetary compensation payments. [47162]
§ The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Dr. John Cunningham)I announced on 3 February our decision to pay £85 million in agrimonetary compensation to the UK beef and sheepmeat sectors. This is the first occasion on which a UK Government have paid such aid.
§ Mr. GillIs not the real reason why the Government refuse to pay the full amount of agrimonetary compensation because they are trying to browbeat individual farmers into abandoning their opposition to the single currency? [Laughter.] I am talking about the views, not of the National Farmers Union which the Minister has already articulated, but of individual farmers. In many respects, the views of the NFU are as different from the views of individual farmers, and as out of touch with them, as the views of the Government are out of sympathy with public opinion.
§ Dr. CunninghamEven for the fevered anti-European imagination of the hon. Gentleman that one is a tall story. 510 As I have already told the House, the reality is that this is the first Administration ever to pay agrimonetary compensation to farmers and—
§ Dr. CunninghamWe have paid 95 per cent. of the total available to sheep farmers and 75 per cent. of the total available to beef farmers.